Logan Ramsey
Editor-in-Chief
Democrats in Idaho need new leadership. I think that the 2018 race for governor between Brad Little and Paulette Jordan made that abundantly clear.
The Democrats had the best situation they could have asked for dropped into their lap when Paulette Jordan announced her gubernatorial race. Jordan was a fresh face to Idaho who people didn’t know yet, meaning they could shape her image before anyone had a chance to smear her through the mud. And even more than that, she was a candidate who had the opportunity and the ability to get Idahoans excited about the Democratic party and activate them in politics.
But instead, the Democrats chose to shoot themselves in the foot.
As far as I’ve read, during the primary between Jordan and A.J. Balukoff, she had not gotten any endorsements from members of her party.
To put it bluntly, Balukoff doesn’t have anything on Jordan. Jordan had more experience in government, more education than Balukoff and more of an “it” factor. Balukoff, as a candidate, didn’t have the ability to generate the excitement that Jordan did, because he’s just more of the same from a party that for the last twenty years has consistently shown that they don’t have the ability to excite Idaho voters. Not to mention that Balukoff had already tried and failed to be Idaho’s governor.
Balukoff was the face that Democrats knew and trusted, but that’s exactly why they shouldn’t have endorsed him. Idahoan Democrats need to excite Idahoans if they ever plan on being competitive with the Republican party again, because the fact of the matter right now is that they’re not.
After Jordan won the primary, the response from Democratic lawmakers felt less than excited. It felt like they were begrudgingly accepting her as their nominee and not uniting behind her like they should have been.
The Idaho Republicans do a much better job of appearing to be on a united front than the Democrats. The Democrats’ inability to recognize the opportunity they were given by the Jordan campaign alone shows me that they need new leadership that knows what it takes to gain ground politically.
Moving the issue past just their mistakes with Jordan, the party needs to learn how to take a strong stand on divisive political issues, because I don’t think I’ve seen the Idaho Democrats take a strong stand on anything.
What prompted me writing this entire column was what I read about the Abortion Human Rights Act, a new bill being proposed in the Idaho legislature that would make any abortion performed in Idaho murder, including to save the life of the mother.
This is an extremely controversial piece of legislation, and it should be the Democrats’ top priority to stop it, but when asked for comment by the press, they refused to comment, saying they “don’t take stances on specific pieces of legislation.” You read that right, they’re a political party, and their official policy is to not take stances on specific legislation.
This is something that the Democrats have to change, and the only way I can think of to fix it is to find political leaders who won’t pull any punches and actually have the ability to fight for Democratic values like they should as a political party.
